Metformin like Stress Response Modulating Effects of Turmeric Curcuminoids in Mice

The aim of the study was to compare the protective efficacies of a single and repeated daily oral doses (5, 20, 80, and 320 mg/kg) of a Curcuma longa extract (C. longa) enriched in curcuminoids (95.4%) with those of metformin (100 mg/ kg) against intermittent foot shock stress triggered body weight changes and thermoregulatory responses in male and female mice. No significant effects of both the test agents on basal rectal temperature, or on short duration of foot shock stress triggered transient hyperthermia were observed one hour after their single oral doses. However, metformin-like and dose dependant efficacy of the extract against body weight losses, elevated core temperatures, and stress induced transient hyperthermia were observed after its 5, 7, and 10 daily oral doses. Similar were also the cases for their observed effects in tail suspension test for antidepressants conducted one hour after their 11 daily oral doses, and in pentobarbital-induced sleep tests conducted a day after their 11 daily doses. Minimal effective doses of the extract after its repeated daily doses on all quantified parameters and in both male and female mice was 5 mg/kg/day, and quantitatively efficacies of its 20 mg/kg/day doses was always quite similar to those of 100 mg/kg/day metformin. These observations reveal that C. longa could be functionally a metformin-like desensitizer of biological mechanisms and processes involved in stress triggered thermoregulatory and other physiological responses, and that it could be a better therapeutic option for prevention and cure of co-morbid psychopathologies accompanying environmental stress. *Corresponding author: Kumar V, Neuropharmacology Research Laboratory, Department of Pharmaceutics, Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi, India, Tel: +91-542-6702742, Fax: +91542-2368428, E-mail: [email protected] Verma S1, Chatterjee SS2 and Kumar V1* The yellow colored and quantitatively the major diarylheptanoids encountered in Curcuma longa (a plant of the Zingiberaceae family) rhizomes are now often referred to as turmeric curcuminoids. Curcumin was the very first pigment isolated from the rhizomes of the plant widely used in modern food industries as a coloring agent or for manufacturing curry powders. Due to its antimicrobial and strong irreversible binding properties to cotton, silk, and woolen fibers it has since long been used also as a textile coloring agent [1,2]. The numbers of reports reconfirming broad spectrums of microbicidal efficacies of curcumin and other turmeric curcuminoids have continued to increase during more recent decades, and analogous is also the case for their diverse other therapeutically interesting bioactivities identified since 1970s [3,4]. They have not only added experimental evidences in support of their medicinal and dietary uses in diverse traditionally known systems of medicine and health care, but also suggested that they are structurally and functionally unique drug leads, and that they could be potentially useful for prevention and cure of diverse spectrums of psychopathologies and metabolic disorders. Available preclinical and clinical information on turmeric curcuminoids not only reveal that they are pleiotropic protective agents, but also suggest that improving their oral bioavailability could be feasible means for obtaining therapeutic benefits from them [5-10]. Despite of such advances though, many questions concerning their pharmacological sites and modes of actions still remain controversial, or at the best speculative only [11,12]. Citation: Verma S, Chatterjee SS, Kumar V (2015) Metformin Like Stress Response Modulating Effects of Turmeric Curcuminoids in Mice. SAJ Neurol 1: 102 Volume 1 | Issue 1 Curcuma longa; Curcuminoids; Foot-shock stress; Hyperthermia; Pentobarbital induced sedation; Tail suspension test Volume 1 | Issue 1